Talk about prima donnas and drama queens. North Korean
dictator Kim Jong-il again managed to get the world's attention and
grab the front pages with his "nuclear" test on Sunday -- just as
he did on the 4th of July when North Korea launched a missile test
over the East Sea/Seaof Japan. The man has an impeccable sense of
timing, but the question is what else he really has to show for
himself -- hence the quote marks around the word
"nuclear."

Allegedly, this is all about North Korea's desire to press
for bilateral talks with the United States, something the Bush
administration has rightly rejected. In a bilateral setting, the
blame for failure would inevitable redound to the United States.
Also we have been down that road once with the Clinton
administration, leading us to where we are today.

However, we should be prepared to send Mr. Kim an
unequivocal message -- with return address 1600 Pennsylvania
Avenue. As President Bush has stated, a nuclear and missile armed
North Korea is unacceptable, a recipe for the start of a regional
nuclear arms race. We may even want to remind the North Koreans
that all options remain on the table from an American point of
view.

Mr. Bush, however, stopped short of threatening any
military action and called for diplomacy and an "immediate
response" from the United Nations, which is not likely to cause Mr.
Kim to break out in cold sweat. Still, we do need to make clear to
North Korea the costs of pursuing this reckless course.

Statements by U.N. Ambassador John Bolton on tightening
the sanctions regime on Pyongyang are helpful, and we should also
continue to work to get others on board -- the greatest challenge
being China, on whose support the North Korean regime's survival
depends. As Mr. Kim defied stern warnings from Beijing not to
conduct the test, which he had been threatening for week, a strong
Chinese feeling of irritation at the very least should be something
our efforts could benefit from.

Meanwhile, the South Korean "sunshine policy" toward North
Korea has received another devastating blow. Its essence is all
carrots and no sticks -- rather like the European approach to Iran
-- and it has been just as effective. South Korean President Roh
Moo-hyun called the test a "betrayal of the hopes of the Korean
people," but the fact is that "hope" is probably all the sun-shine
policy has ever been based on. It has also been based on the
misguided notion of helping the North Koreans "save
face."

But before we hyperventilate, let us make sure we actually
know what happened. North Koreans are masters at deception -- as
visitors to the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between North and South
Korea can testify. In the past, the sounds of invasion tunnels
being blasted through solid rock underneath the DMZ were disguised
by the sound of construction work on the northern side of the
border. And within the DMZ, the North Korean "peace village," which
can be seen from the south, presents an elaborate piece of theater
with happy peasants going about their business. Meanwhile in North
Korea itself, people starve and an estimated 200,000 people
languish in concentration camps.

All of which is why a grain of salt is in order. As
reported by The Washington Times' Bill Gertz yesterday, it is from
clear exactly what kind of test took place on Oct. 8. It will take
days or weeks to assemble the physical evidence -- detection of
radiation levels, etc. -- to reach any level of certainty. The
blast, which suggests an attempt at starting a plutonium-based
nuclear reaction, appeared to have been a good deal smaller than
one would expect from a successful nuclear test. This could be
either because it failed, or because it was a piece of bluff in the
first place.

Similarly with the missile test of July 4th, which was a
spectacular failure as far as North Korea's long-range missiles
were concerned. It revealed more of a desire to possess this
capability than the reality, and it is incredibly important for our
sense of perspective that we distinguish between the
two.

Why would North Korea go to these lengths to bluff?
Tightened U.S. sanctions in place on North Korean counterfeiting
and on weapons proliferation have been highly successful, depriving
Pyongyang of much needed sources of revenue. By demonstrating a
Potemkin nuclear capability, the North Korean government may be
hoping to exact concessions from South Korea -- or even better --
from the United States. It is a game we cannot afford to
play.

Helle
Dale is director of the Douglas and
Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies at the Heritage
Foundation.